The last time I genuinely cheered for the Boston Red Sox, as a team, as an organization, was in 2004. “If they pulled this off,” I said. “It’d be so good for those long-suffering fans.”

I didn’t know how wrong I was. What I’ve discovered in the last 15 years was that those fans and the sports media in that town deserved to suffer. They are entitled piss-babies who eat their young and whinge when the smallest thing doesn’t go their way. Their grandparents lived their entire lives without seeing a Red Sox World Series championship, and these jerks have had four this century, as well as an NFL team that is simultaneously stupendous and just the worst.

And what I’ve discovered about the Boston Red Sox, which will probably end up the most storied MLB franchise of the first quarter of this century, is that it’s fun when they suck.

It’s a particular kind of suck — it can’t be when they are genuinely terrible and the fans have just resigned themselves to it. If they are thinking, “This is a wash. Let’s try again in 2020,” it’s the wrong kind of suck.

The Red Sox need to have the expectations of being great and then to fall short.

If their ace gets injured and it’s just one of those years, it’s the wrong kind of suck.

If their ace, who dominated in 2018 and signs a big extension right before the season starts and then proceeds to lay eggs every time he toes the rubber, it’s the right kind of suck.

Any thing that can get these fans and the town’s sports media to wail and rent garments is comedy gold for the fans and media of every other MLB team. They should be wringing their hands and having existential crises.

That’s the sweet spot.

Listen to that crowd. These people are about to call in to WEEI to protest that their life isn’t fair. They watched so much great baseball in 2018, and this is what they get this year? You got your World Series rings and this is how you play? 3-9? HOW DARE YOU?

Let’s hope they are Solo Last for most of 2019. It’d be ever so fun.

About the Sac Bunts

This was a great moment.

ESPN’s Marly Rivera wrote about the significance of it.

Overall, I think Montoyo has done a decent job so far. My only issue is the sac bunts. I’m all for stealing bases, and creating havoc on the base paths with speed. I don’t mind creativity when a team is slumping. Hitters understanding the situation and doing what needs to be done. Sac flys, going the other way, dropping a bunt down against the shift. Bunting for hits.

I put my foot down on sac bunts. The numbers don’t back up the idea that it’s a good thing. The only finite thing in baseball is outs. Don’t give them away. ¡Basta!

Keith Law on the subject of sac bunts.

"If what you're doing makes us worse off, why are you doing it?"

Today’s Walk Up

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